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‘A Stitch In Time . .’

Which probably accounts for the raggedy-arsed persona I project much of the time. The thought of having to wander around some Waikiki Outlet Store looking at endless racks of ‘classic cut’ or stupid, bloody ‘carrot cut’ trousers or slax whilst listening to endlessly looped, total crap warblers is just too much!

Better to just ‘make-do and mend’, I say. So it was that for the umpteenth time my mother’s old sewing machine came out together with a worn-out pair of J’s jeans. She throws them out and buys new – I salvage from the bin and chop them up for patches as required and feel doubly smug about saving the planet!

Anyway, as I was doing the job, I got to thinking about this machine and admiring its smooth, timeless lines and faultless engineering (for it truly is a gem).

It will perform just about any trick that a modern, expensive, all-singing, all-dancing, electronic, plastic-fantastic machine can do. Not with computer wizardry but with inter-changeable, smooth-as-silk cogs and gears! The drive belt alone would not disgrace a Lamborghini! And the bodywork is all cast – no bendy plastic here, mate! After all, it is a Husqvarna built in Sweden back in the days when that country understood that quality engineering counted for something!

‘So, how old is it, then?’ I hear you ask. Well, my mother bought it on hire-purchase in Malta on the 5th October, 1956 for £53/14/8 (or fifty three pounds, fourteen shillings and eight pence) with a deposit of £17/6/8 and six monthly instalments of £6/1/4!

I still have the original guarantee, bill of sale, inspection note, instruction book and a little ‘thingamyjig’ for working out all the fancy stitches that can be created.

I got to musing about how many of these wonderful bits of engineering might still be in daily use – probably not too many in this throw-away days. You can imagine my surprise when a search online led me to the ‘Husqvarna Automatic 21’ group on Facebook with 788 enthusiastic members – 789 now I’ve joined. It feels like I’ve come home!

Alan, This was a great story (although I can’t believe you saved all of that documentation – then again, yes, I can). It’s great to know that there are lots of people in the world who know a good thing and work hard to keep it going. We needed some parts for an original Nordic track ski machine a few years back and it turned out that there were people who specialized in making spare parts for the much-loved machine.

I had the good fortune to be my own boss in the Prison Service and so used to sign myself up for various interesting courses. One (spread over several years) was for maintenance of sewing machines of all types and on another I passed ‘City & Guilds’ certification as a shirt-maker! God, life was fun!